Vera Mary Brittain was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist, and pacifist. She is best remembered for her best-selling 1933 memoir Testament of Youth, which recounted her experiences during the First World War and the beginning of her journey towards pacifism.

Her daughter, Shirley Vivian Teresa Brittain Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, is a British politician and academic who represents the Liberal Democrats.